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Whistler/Blackcomb

The trip to Whistler was remarkably painful: an 7am flight out of DTW on no sleep (we left the house at 4am because of inclement weather) with a 2 hour layover in Chicago, finally on to SeaTac, from whence it was a 5 hour drive to Whistler/Blackcomb. Coupled with the time-change, and a night of rocking out hard until 3am, some of us went close to 40 hours without sleep. Heading out to the slopes a mere 5 hours later, was something from which most of us never really recovered — that, and being out of shape on the largest mountain I’ve ever seen.

Six hours riding on a sheet of ice (no freshiez to speak of) taxes your legs in an unimaginable way. Four hours monopolizing the hotel’s only hot-tub with a case of beer afterwards, as we would learn, doesn’t exactly help.

TheCoast, on his introductory Gnargasm, had literally been like 3/4 of the way around the world in two weeks, having come back on R&R from his post in Baghdad a few days before, he was now on a mountaintop in British Columbia. On that mountaintop, he almost died when he caught an edge and flipped upside down, landing on his head.

David Z was trying to get back to the Condo on the second afternoon, when he saw what he thought might be a shortcut. About a half-mile down what he then learned was a fire-trail or access road for snowmobiles, covered in solid and chunky ice, he was forced to unstrap his board, and hike it out. Too embarrassed to flag down the local transit bus, he booted it back to the room — all told, turning a 5-minute trip into a 45-minute trek.

The Highlander was humiliating himself (falling down on the approach ramps to rails) in the park on the last day. Then, he suffered a major set-back: he decided it would be funny to jam his shins right into a metal rail. It felt like there was a serious divot in his leg bone. A month and a half later, he was still hurting. If the video from this momentous occasion ever surfaces, it will find its way to this website.

Here is a video clip of David Z getting some air at Whistler. It’s not much air, because it was the last day of 3 straight. All told, an extra day would’ve been beneficial. A 4-day trip allows the vacationer to ski or ride for 3 full days, while taking a day off to recover in the middle. No matter who you are, 3 full days of riding back-to-back-to-back is an amazing feat of strength and endurance.